The PerfectIt Blog

Here you will find tips and tricks for more efficient editing techniques and improved content. Explore a wealth of ideas, practical advice, and industry best practices that will help you save time while improving the quality of your written documents.

Medical Writing PerfectIt Medical Writing PerfectIt

Disease Names, and How to Treat Them (At Least Editorially Speaking)

Health conditions are varied and complicated. They can cause pain, confusion, dizziness, slack jaw, belly aches… and that’s just their names! Take for example Stein-Leventhal syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome, chronic hyperandrogenic anovulation, CHA, and PCOS. As different as they look, these five have something in common: they’re all names for the same thing.

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Medical Writing, Product News, Styles Christopher Wright Medical Writing, Product News, Styles Christopher Wright

Why We Built a Plain Language Summary Style in PerfectIt

In December 2022 we launched our Medical Plain Language Summary style. It’s launched in beta as a living document, and we hope that the medical writing community will continue giving us feedback so that we can keep making it more useful for medical communicators working with plain language summaries.

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Medical Writing PerfectIt Medical Writing PerfectIt

Medical Plain Language Summary Style (Beta Release)

Creating content for a non-specialist audience means thinking differently about medical information. The increasing requirement for plain language summaries, including the European Union Clinical Trials Regulation, reflects the growing emphasis on improving patient involvement. But translating complex medical terms to non-specialist language can be time consuming. We get so used to medical terminology, it’s easy to miss things when checking. We’ve created a medical plain language summary style in PerfectIt to help with the challenge!

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Medical Writing Christopher Wright Medical Writing Christopher Wright

Medical Abbreviations: WTF (What They’re For) and OMG (Optimal Management Guide)

If you work with medical text, you’re familiar with how authors like to salt their text with SLTs (Simple Lexical Tools) representing SLTs (Standard Learned Terms). Sometimes, however, these are SLT (Single, Limited, or Transient) in use, and much of the time their real function is just as SLTs (Shiny Little Toys).

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How to Write a Great Instruction in PerfectIt

If your goal is to get everyone in your organization or group to follow your house style—and to learn the principles behind it—there’s more to it than simply adding terms and adjusting settings in the Style Sheet Editor. The exact words you use to describe the issue make a difference.

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Medical Writing Charlie Coppack Medical Writing Charlie Coppack

8 Hacks to Nail Your Next Plain Language Summary

It’s important to get a PLS right. When done well, these summaries can improve health literacy in the general public and encourage the pharmaceutical companies that sponsor clinical research to operate more transparently. These eight hacks, adapted from tips by the Plain Language Association International and The Center for Plain Language, will help you master your next PLS.

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Who Knows Their WHO Style?

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a spotlight on the World Health Organization (WHO), an intergovernmental organization that works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable. As part of their work, WHO publishes a range of documents, from international health standards, to “situation reports” describing progress in fighting a disease, to advice for the public on staying safe and healthy.

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Medical Writing PerfectIt Medical Writing PerfectIt

Capitalizing on Drug Names

Drug manufacturing is a capitalist business. We know this because, pretty much without exception, drug manufacturers handle their brand names in ALL CAPITALS: “The gold standard in maintenance treatment for reticulated spline is KYDATID® (roftlomulast).” But does that mean you have to handle it that way too?

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Medical Writing, Business of Editing PerfectIt Medical Writing, Business of Editing PerfectIt

Six Tips to Speed Up How You Edit Medical Documents

As a medical writer, your team depends on you to catch errors, large and small. It’s your job to make sure that months or even years of hard work on a regulatory submission, grant application, or research article aren’t undermined by small imperfections that make a bad impression and weaken your team’s credibility.

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Medical Writing PerfectIt Medical Writing PerfectIt

A Prescription for Clearer Medical Communication

Bad writing – stiff, convoluted, inconsistent – can get in the way of communication just as bad handwriting can. Healthcare professionals take in a lot of information and must make important decisions based on it. Anything that increases the effort of taking in that information increases the likelihood of errors.

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Medical Writing PerfectIt Medical Writing PerfectIt

Make Medical Information an Easy Pill to Swallow

If you have a cat or a dog, you know the first challenge in using medication to treat their health conditions is getting them to swallow the darn stuff. The same is true for health information with people, especially ordinary people with no special medical background. In order to be in control of your health, you have to be well informed about it. But people need that information in a form they can swallow.

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